Movie Review: John Wick Chapter 3 - Parabellum

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum **** / *****

Directed by: Chad Stahelski.

Written by:  Derek Kolstad and Shay Hatten and Chris Collins & Marc Abrams based on characters created by Kolstad.

Starring: Keanu Reeves (John Wick), Halle Berry (Sofia), Ian McShane (Winston), Laurence Fishburne (Bowery King), Mark Dacascos (Zero), Asia Kate Dillon (The Adjudicator), Lance Reddick (Charon), Tobias Segal (Earl), Anjelica Huston (The Director), Saïd Taghmaoui (The Elder), Jerome Flynn (Berrada), Randall Duk Kim (Doctor), Margaret Daly (Operator), Robin Lord Taylor (Administrator), Susan Blommaert (Librarian), Jason Mantzoukas (Tick Tock Man).

 

We are lucky if we get one action movie a year that makes your jaw drop at just what is being put onscreen in terms of the action. The last film like that was Mission Impossible – Fallout, and before that you have Mad Max Fury Road. While John Wick Chapter 3 – Parabellum – isn’t quite up to those standards, it is the type of action film that shows you a bunch of stuff you have never quite seen before, and should be treated as a benchmark for future action directors – who need to watch the film to see what audiences can rightly expect from action movies, and adjust their ambitions accordingly. It is probably a little too long at 130 minutes, and there is little bit of a sense of diminishing returns at some point – the best action sequences are in the first act of the film, and while the action sequences near the finale are better than 95% of action sequences we see elsewhere, you do kind of wish they would have arrived sooner. Still, this is as good as mainstream action movies can possibly get in 2019 – and should be celebrated accordingly.

 

The action picks up literally at the end of John Wick Chapter 2 – where he had killed his enemy in the New York Continental Hotel, which is supposed to be a sanctuary for criminals, and no business is to be conducted there. This means that John Wick is now Ex Communicado – with a $14 million bounty on his head, running through the streets of New York with henchmen of all stripes out to get him. This opening sequence is the best in the movie – with one jaw dropping action sequence after another – one in a library, using of course, library books as weapons, one in a store, with an aisle of glass cases filled with knives and axes, all of which get broken, and the weapons used, and then an extended sequence involving a horse – first as a weapon, and then a chase sequence. Dozens are killed by John Wick in this sequence – and its glorious to behold. Keanu Reeves is in his element here, and does a great job in these scenes – which are expertly crafted by director Chad Stahelski, who has cleared watched the best of John Woo, and decided to try and top him.

 

Once the story elements of the movie take over for a while, the movie does slow down. There is a trip to Casablanca, and a walk through the desert, etc. At home in New York, an Adjudicator (Asia Kate Dillon) from the High Table isn’t happy with Winston (Ian McShane) who gave Wick an hour head start before placing the bounty on him, or the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) who helped Wick, knowing what he was going to do. There must be punishment.

 

Let’s be honest, all the high table stuff in the John Wick movies is ridiculous. You know, I know it, the movie knows it – and for the most part embraces the inherent goofiness of it all. That’s the correct way to handle things, and the cast knows it, and leans into the ridiculousness – no one more so than Ian McShane, who is having the time of his life as Winston. It would be even better had there been less of it all – the better to get back to the action sequences, which keep coming fast and furious – and are all wonderful – a fight sequence featuring Halle Berry and her two killer dogs in a mid-movie highlight to be sure, even if objectively it goes on too long, you don’t much care.

 

The movie, of course, ends in an orgy of violence – all of which is handled very well, even if I could probably do without the heavily armored men with machine guns, and just get to Keanu fighting the movies big bad Zero (played by Iron Chef America’s chairman Mark Dacascos and his goons. Those fights, in the one of the increasingly strange, over designed (brilliantly) in the rooms of the Continental are awe-inspiring, in the way that seeing Keanu guns down a lot of people bathed in green light just wasn’t (again, it’s better than almost any other scene of its sort in recent memory – it’s perhaps just a little much given everything else in the movie). And, of course, it sets itself for yet another John Wick sequel. By the fourth entry, most franchises are starting to feel strained and silly – that should be especially true of a series that started with a revenge tour kicked off by a dog murder – but here, John Wick still feels like it has more room to grow. Each film in the series has been better than the last. That’s rare for an action series – and I cannot wait to see what is next.

Movie Review: John Wick: Chapter 2

John Wick: Chapter 2 **** / *****

Directed by: Chad Stahelski.

Written by: Derek Kolstad.

Starring: Keanu Reeves (John Wick), Riccardo Scamarcio (Santino D'Antonio), Ian McShane (Winston), Ruby Rose (Ares), Common (Cassian), Claudia Gerini (Gianna D'Antonio), Lance Reddick (Charon), Laurence Fishburne (Bowery King), Tobias Segal (Earl), John Leguizamo (Aurelio).

 

I re-watched 2014’s original John Wick on the same day I knew I was going to see the sequel in theaters – and found I liked it even more than the first time through. It is a model of narrative efficiency – pretty much because it doesn’t really bother to have one. Russian gangster show up at new widower John Wick’s house – kills the dog his late wife left him, and steals his beloved Mustang – not knowing that John Wick is the world’s deadliest assassin, and that by angering him, they were bringing him out of retirement to kill them all. All that happens in about 15 minutes, and the next minutes is John Wick doing just that. The sequel has even less plot. After a brilliant opening sequences – which dispenses of the usual standard issue sequel plot to an action movie that didn’t need one, which is to introduced a previously unheard of relative (brother, father, son, cousin, etc.) – who wants vengeance on our hero. The opening scene – about 10 minutes – has John Wick going up against the brother of his arch nemesis from the first film to try and get his car back – it’s an exciting sequence, combining gun fights and car chases, and leaves more people dead than just about any other action movie in total will this year. After that, the actual plot kicks off – an Italian gangster, Santino D’Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio) comes to Wick’s house to call in his marker – something Wick cannot refuse. Santino wants Wick to murder his sister – so Santino can take his place on the grand counsel of crime syndicates – and when Wick refuses, he blows up his house. Wick agrees – and while is, as always, great at his job – there are double crosses and triple crosses, and globetrotting fight sequences, and Wick literally shots hundreds of people in the face, or stabs them, or some other sort of extreme violence. The film essentially straight ahead action for two hours – and I loved every second of it.

 

Keanu Reeves is perfect as John Wick – he is not an actor with a tremendous amount of range, and is better used in stuff like this and The Matrix, where his natural blankness can be used as an asset. If in the first film, his anger fueled him, here there is less of that righteous anger – at least at first. He is just trying to survive. It helps that there are colorful characters all around him – some for a scene or two, and some for longer than that. This movie brings back Ian McShane, as the head of The Continental – a hotel for killers with very strict rules, and McShane smirks throughout, and relishes every line of dialogue – knowing both how ridiculous it is, and how fun it is to say. Lance Reddick, as the clerk at the hotel, has almost as much fun having to pretend that everything is normal. Laurence Fishburne probably has too much fun as the king of the homeless people (he goes too big, even for this film). Common goes the other way – perhaps taking things a little too seriously as one of the men out for vengeance against Wick. Scamarcio is fine as the main antagonist – but he is clearly outshone by Ruby Rose, as his silent sidekick.

 

Still, plot, characters, performances aren’t really why you see John Wick – it is the action. The original’s director Chad Stahelski – a stuntman before he started directing – is back, and further proves he is one of the best directors of action around. He doesn’t (overly) rely on shaky camera work or rapid fire editing to create false adrenaline in his films. He prefers to let the action play out at length in front of his camera – tracking Wick down long, dark corridors and catacombs in one brilliant sequence, and one after another, people jump out and he has to kill them. The fight with Common on the subway goes on an absurd length of time, with multiple starts and stops, but he expertly builds the tension even when it does stop. Staheski isn’t quite at John Woo level of action mastery – Woo camera work is more fluid, and he prefers even longer shots, with more geography in them than Staheski.

 

There is no denying that John Wick Chapter 2 – even more than its predecessor – is all style, and little substance. This is a straight ahead action movie, and as that, it’s probably the best since Mad Max: Fury Road. It does lack that movie additional depth, and isn’t as stylistically bold either. But, as a straight ahead action movie, John Wick Chapter 2 is tough to beat. I cannot wait for Chapter 3.

Movie Review: John Wick

John Wick
Directed by: David Leitch & Chad Stahelski.
Written by: Derek Kolstad.
Starring: Keanu Reeves (John Wick), Michael Nyqvist (Viggo Tarasov), Alfie Allen (Iosef Tarasov), Willem Dafoe (Marcus), Dean Winters (Avi), Adrianne Palicki (Ms. Perkins), Omer Barnea (Gregori), Toby Leonard Moore (Victor), Daniel Bernhardt (Kirill), Bridget Moynahan (Helen), John Leguizamo (Aureilo), Ian McShane (Winston), Bridget Regan (Addy), Lance Reddick (Hotel Manager / Charon).

American action movies have, unfortunately, become all about rapid fire editing, and shaky handheld camera work that emphasis visceral energy over coherence. If you are a director like Paul Greengrass, or Michael Bay on his best day, than this can actually be effective. But most directors don’t seem to know how to use this style well – so what happens in the action sequences is that become so tightly editing that everything becomes confusing to me – I have no idea what is really going on. I have always preferred Hong Kong style action – the type of thing practiced by John Woo in the 1980s and 1990s, or which Johnnie To does now. Even if Woo and To have a lot of differences in their style, the one thing they do share is that they let action sequences play out at length – they don’t favor the rapid fire editing to create false suspense or energy. The best thing about John Wick is that first time directors - David Leitch & Chad Stahelski  - allow the action sequences to play out a little bit longer than most action movies made in America today. The action in the movie is clean, crisp, bold and genuinely exciting.

The plot of the movie is typical revenge movie stuff. The newly widowed title character (Keanu Reeves) is grieving for his beloved wife, when the doorbell rings – and a dog is delivered – a last gift from his wife. The dog isn’t around very long though – the spoiled son of a Russian mobster wants Wick’s car – but he will not sell, so he and his goons visit Wick, steal the car, and kill the dog. What this spoiled brat doesn’t know is who Wick was in his former life – the deadliest assassin who ever worked for his father (Michael Nyqvist). Now, of course, Wick wants vengeance – and the Russian mob boss will stop at nothing to protect his son.

In broad strokes, there is not much difference between the story of John Wick and that of a film like Taken (or its sequel). I wasn’t a fan of either of the Taken movies – mainly because they were they were ridiculous, but took themselves way too seriously. That is a mistake that John Wick doesn’t make – the directors know they are making a goofy revenge action film from the start, and they never pretend otherwise. Reeves also knows this, and he rips into his role with a certain grim glee (if that makes any sense), relishing his violent action sequences, which he is expert at. The two directors of the film have mainly been stuntmen in the past – and they certainly want to show off what they are best at – and the hand-to-hand combat and gunfight scenes are probably the best I have seen in a movie this year. The rest of the cast get on the same wavelength of Reeves, and have a blast with their roles.

There is nothing original about John Wick – but there really doesn’t have to be. It knows precisely what it is, and goes for broke from the first scene to the last. It’s a hell of good time at the movies – a guilty pleasure to be sure, but a great one at that.